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Jimmy Wolk: "Nah, he's just kidding. He's an ORANGE elephant!"

The Ikaris

Chapter 1: Married...

It was a beautiful morning in Neo Tokyo 3. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the bees were... well, you know about the flowers and the bees...
That beautiful morning, Shinji Ikari awoke with a serious headache.

'Oww! Damn Misato and her parties,' he thought groggily. 'Damn whoever came up with the idea to raid her beer supply after she passed out...'

"Morning..."

"Hmm... Morning"

'MORNING?!?' His eyes shot open in an instant, the headache quickly forgotten. Slowly he turned his head around, facing a certain red-haired roommate more or less mirroring his movement.

"AAAHHH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??" both screamed in panic, as they simultaneously bolted up and jumped apart, pointing at each other.

"B-but this is my room!" Shinji protested.

"Oh yeah? I bet you hentai waited till I was drunk to drag me here!"

"Ah... eh... well... at least we still have our clothes on, so we didn t... well... eh," Shinji stammered.

Bad idea. Suggesting something like THAT is probably the last thing you should do in front of a fuming Asuka.

In less than a second her fist made contact with his face. But in addition to the usual impact; the struck boy felt something else... something scratching...

"Ouch! Hey, since when do you wear rings?" he whined.

"Huh? What do you mean?" she asked perplexed, before checking her hand and indeed, there was a plain, sliver ring on her finger. "Now, that is weird. But I... eh..." she trailed off, as she pointed with widened eyes at Shinji.

"Hm? What?" He looked at the hand he was holding his face with. There was an awful similar ring on it. They exchanged a fearful glance.

"No way..."

But they didn't fail to notice a piece of paper on the desk.

A piece of paper, that looked amazingly similar to a marriage certificate, issued to Mr. Shinji & Mrs. Asuka Langley Ikari.

Yes, it was a beautiful morning in Neo Tokyo 3. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the screams emitting from the Katsuragi residence were louder than ever...

*********************

'Hmm, that's definitively not the reaction, I've expected...' Shinji thought, watching his guardian and superior Misato Katsuragi laughing her lungs out, after they've told her their story, at least as far as they could remember (which wasn't much).

"Well, that story almost made up for the loss of all of my precious beer," she chuckled, wiping a tear away, that she'd wept cause of her laughing.

"Ha Ha! Veeery funny!" Asuka grumbled.

"Oh, you don't think so, Mrs. Ikari?" Misato teased.

"Don't you DARE call me that!" She jumped up so fast, that she caused the chair, she'd been sitting on to fall, while Shinji next to her flinched by her sudden outburst. "This 'wedding' can't be legal! What kind of law would allow two drunken teenagers to marry? I bet this is just a cruel joke of yours!"

"Oh, I'm afraid, I have to disappoint you," Misato just grinned unimpressed at the raging redhead, before taking a deep breath. "Due to the death of half of the humanity after Second Impact, most countries declared a lot of laws to encourage family development and thus a raise in birthrates. That included the decrease of contraceptives, as well as extremely loosened wedding conditions."

"What? I've never heard of such nonsense!"

"Well, many countries have dropped them later," the Major shrugged. "However, Japan was not one of them."

"Arrgh! Of all countries, I have to work in the Las Vegas of Asia! Fine, if this can't be undone, we're getting divorced as soon as possible!"

"Uh, I don't think it will be that easy. You see, in addition, they decided to keep the number of divorces as low as possible by setting up an extreme amount of bureaucracy and conditions. You'll have to go to a marriage counseling, for example."

"Um, Misato, how come you know that much about this?" Shinji asked, nervous about the whole situation.

For the first time since they sat down at the kitchen table, Misato's grin dropped and she slightly turned red. "Well, let's say, I've barley evaded being Mrs. Kaji by now..."

"As if you would mind!" Asuka glared at her, before she punched Shinji's arm. "And you baka: get up! We're getting divorced right now!"

"B-but, haven't you listened?" he mumbled, rubbing the aching spot, where she hit him.

"Baka! We're going to someone powerful enough to compel a special condition from the government. I won't stand being married to you a whole day!" she declared emphatically.

"Eh... who?"

"The Commander, of course!"

"F-father?" he managed to stammer, as he was already grabbed by his wrist and dragged out of the room. 'This day is getting better every second...'

*********************

"Denied!" The simple statement echoed through the big, dark office.

"What?"

"You have a problem with that, pilot Sor... Ikari?" Commander Gendo Ikari struggled hard to maintain his trademarked 'cold-hearted-bastard-behavior' instead of rolling laughing on the floor.

The Second Children obviously cringed at being addressed by that name, but didn't dare to yell at the Commander of NERV.

"To be honest: Yes, I have!" she replied; the eyes twitching, the clenched fists trembling .

The older Ikari cleared his throat. "As I said, since this won't affect your piloting, NERV's superiority will not be involved in such an insignificant matter. You will handle this... situation in the traditional way. You are dismissed."

"Yes, Sir," came one mumbled and one peeved answer.

Once the door was slammed shut, Fuyutsuki finally spoke up. "You think that was wise, Ikari?"

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A/N: Well, there it is: A short little, introduction to my third project. Originally, I planned this as a one-shot, most likely set after a prevented/failed TI, but I got curious to see what it would be like during the series. So I've decided to mix it with some other ideas I had and make it a continuation. Maybe I will still do the one-shot-version, as well. I'm not sure, if I'm going through the entire rest of the series, since I'm doing that with 'The 2nd try' already. And as I said, I will focus on that first, since I've planned it out more, so it could take a while before there will be the next chapter of 'The Ikaris'. Until then, see ya...

Revise Notes:
Okay, maybe these notes aren't really necessary, since there aren't that many changes. As in my previous revises, I was too lazy to add more than a few small lines here and there (Come on; do you really want me to write on a revise for several days, when I could use the time to write new chapters? Thought so...). Thanks to Seranov (who was my only (p)re-reader who send me some changes for this *glares at the others*), I hope the majority of the grammar/spelling is fixed by now. If not... *shrugs* whatever...

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